The world must bear witness to this living hell
Former Labour MP George Foulkes reports on the plight of the Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution from Myanmar
AS you read this, I am flying home from the most distressing visit in my many travels.
With seven MPs and two other Peers, I travelled with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to witness the plight of the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in the sprawling camp in Bangladesh that is now their home.
One of our guides, Catherine Mahoney, of the International Rescue Committee, who has worked in refugee camps in Rwanda, Congo and Yemen, told us it is the worst she has ever seen.
With more than 600,000 men, women and children, it is like a city the size of Manchester or Glasgow without a hospital, a school or sanitary disposal. It is a living hell. As we stood on a hill in the centre, tents stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see.
The tide of humanity fleeing ethnic cleansing, brutal murder and sexual violence is nothing less than genocide – and it continues apace.
There were five thousand new arrivals in the few days before our visit and in the middle of one of our meetings, the refugee coordinator was told 50 more had just arrived by boat.
Two of the women were pregnant and gave birth almost as soon as they arrived. Others were taken to “stabilisation centres” at which the coordinator said they were “taken back to life”.
The Rohingya people had been just coping until August 25 when the huge purge by the Burmese military resulted in the current tsunami of people fleeing their homes.
It is the greatest movement of people since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
A people expelled from their homeland by a vicious military government because of their religion or, some are suggesting, because the authorities of Myanmar want their land for more lucrative use.
We spoke to a 25-year-old who feels he is imprisoned there, even though it has no walls. He is stateless and cannot leave unless he is accepted in a third country and there is no hope of that.
Most upsetting of all was seeing two families living under a tarpaulin by the side of a busy road.
They eat, sleep and just barely exist. Speaking to them, I could not hold back my tears.
What hope is there for those children when we, the rest of the world, have turned our backs on them?
And yet they are a resilient, intelligent and innovative people. I found even among the desolation and misery of their lives they were welcoming and I could raise a smile.
What can we and should we be doing? The immediate problem is malnutrition. They need food desperately and it is in short supply.
More needs to be done by governments through the World Food Programme and by all of us supporting charities such as Save the Children, who are doing all they can to help.
But the camp needs to be made safe. Dysentery and other diseases, along with fire or floods, could kill hundreds.
Hospitals, sanitation and clean water, as parts of a restructuring of the camp, must follow soon.
The Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheik Hasina, who is described here as “The Mother of Humanity” and who has ultimate responsibility for the refugee camps, also needs to make them a much higher priority.
Above all, we need to demand that the UN, our government and others, insist that the Myanmar military stop the genocide now or the flow of frightened people will continue and the total number of refugees could reach a staggering million.
To compound the tragedy, this appalling disaster has not received the worldwide media coverage it deserves, perhaps because of all the crazy things competing with it.
Our group are returning with a determination to raise its profile at Westminster.
Priti Patel would have been wiser to come with us to see the desperate plight and urgent needs of these refugees than visiting Israel and offering development assistance to the Israeli military.
MPs will raise it at every opportunity in the Commons, as will Peers in the Lords, starting with a parliamentary question I have already tabled.
We need to try to let the Rohingyas know they have not been forgotten.